When preparing for a short sale should you continue paying the mortgage?
My inlaws have a house that they moved out of 2 years ago. Our best guess at this point is that they are $20k underwater on it and they have no money to put towards selling it so it looks like they will list it with an RE agent as a short sale very soon.
They have stayed current on the mortgage this whole time despite being paycheck to paycheck with no money to spare.
My question is, once they have committed to pursuing a short sale on the property is there any reason at all to keep paying the mortgage?
I had previously thought that they should in order to keep from damaging their credit, but now I realize that a short sale is going to be a major hit to their credit anyway and in fact if they stop paying it might actually help their negotiator convince the bank to accept a short sale. All advice is appreciated.